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On Independence Day, former colleague and game design intern at W!Games, Adriaan de Jongh, posted an interesting article about what he discovered were common game development pitfalls. When I read it the first time, I was impressed. Another colleague, a producer, also responded very positively to Adriaan’s post. When I took a look at it a second time, to see if I could come up with something he missed, I decided to write something about his article.

Now, Adriaan is still attending the same school as I went to, the Utrecht School of the Arts, which is why I was pleasantly surprised by his in depth observations on game development. And this is not just making obvious remarks, it really shows that Adriaan experienced these pitfalls first hand and that he has learned from them. Given that he has come to these conclusions so early in his career, and based on my collaboration with him at W!Games, I’m sure that Adriaan will come a long way in the industry.

Nikki Kuppens is Game Designer at W!Games. In his monthly column, he writes about the adventures of a game developer.

When working on a game in school projects, you have an enormous amount of freedom. Unless it’s specified within the assignment, you choose an engine, a platform and methodology yourself. Nobody stresses about the details. But as soon as you start working as a professional designer on commercial titles, precisely those smallest details will be the subject of rigorous scrutiny.